BLM ON TEXAS LAND: NOT A LAND GRAB, IT’S ALREADY OURS

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Oklahoma Field Office responded to Breitbart Texas about the so-called Red River “land grab” by emphasizing that parcels in question are already held in the public domain and BLM-managed. The Bureau claims it is not they who are declaring the ownership but that settled case law long declared it to be government land.

BLM Public Relations Specialist Paul McGuire agreed to a one-on-one telephone interview with Breitbart Texas after reading the original report published earlier this week. In contrast with the interview with Texas General Land Office Commissioner Jerry Patterson, McGuire expressed much more confidence about the ownership of the land and indicated little, if any, ambiguity about how or why the land should be under federal control.

“It’s not the BLM making any such claim as to the status of the land,” McGuire said. “That land was a matter that the courts adjudicated decades ago, going back to the 1920s in fact. The Supreme Court settled the matter as to where the public land in the Red River was. So, BLM is really just proceeding on those earlier court decisions.”

There are two places here in Iowa where Iowa is on the OTHER side of the river, because the river has moved.

Apparently, supposedly the BLM controls the land where the river is or was, or something. I’ve seen the claim but no proof. I don’t know any other state where this is true. Borders between the states are state issues, where do the Feds figure into this?

The feds figure into it through the Equal Footing Doctrine when a state is admitted to the Union.

Under the equal footing doctrine a state admitted to the Union is the complete equal of the original states. “The rule [is] that the States, in their capacity as sovereigns, hold title to the beds under navigable waters.”
Upon statehood, the State gains title within its borders to the beds of waters then navigable or tidally influenced. It may allocate and govern those lands according to state law subject only to “the paramount power of the United States to control such waters for purposes of navigation in interstate and foreign commerce.” The United States retains any title vested in it before statehood to any land beneath waters not then navigable and not tidally influenced, to be transferred or licensed if and as it chooses. Source.

In February 2012, SCOTUS unanimously reaffirmed the tests traditionally used to determine navigable waters in PPL Montana, LLC v. State of Montana. The ruling in PPL Montana significantly affected the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers. If you are interested in the details of how navigability is determined, there are several cases cited at the link I provided. Rapanos v. United States is another big case.

I think it’s called “adverse possession” and I’ve seen it work with borderline property with respect to private ownership (squatters, fences, etc.). I wonder if they appended some sort of exemption (tacked in on to completely unrelated legislation or something) on to other bills. This is where Westlaw and LexisNexis (sp?) come in handy.

And maybe this is why the Obama Administration seized all of the attack helicopters from all of the National Guard units. They’re planning on bringing tanks and they don’t want us to be able to defend ourselves.

Oh, and the best weapon against a tank is a Mason jar filled with ammonia. Throw it on the vents over the engines and the inside of the vehicle will fill up with ammonia which cannot be stopped by the filters on these vehicles.

When the crew bails out of the tank you can greet them according to how they treated their fellow Americans.

It matters not. Black robed tyranny is every bit as onerous as is the BLM JBTs. 'Pod

I dunno. I mean, I've been following this thing and maybe there are subtleties, wrinkles, and labyrinthine legalistics too complicated for my poor, simple brain; or maybe it's just that I hit a rock with the whole idea, and this is the rock: Texas? They're trying this crap in Texas?

Seriously, I don't think the feddies could do anything more inflammatory short of running a troop train into town filled with Georgetown wonks in three-piece suits with bumper stickers on the sides of the cars saying "We're queer, we're here, we're from Washington and we're going to take your land." With signs on the backs of their little jackets saying "Please kick my ass." Guys, if it turns nasty, whose fault is it?

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